Fodor's may use your email address to send you relevant information on site updates, account changes, and offers. For more information about your privacy and protection, please review our full Privacy Policy.

Nice vs Villefranche, France october2012

We will be in southern France October 3-9-2012. We are looking at Hotel Welcome,Villefranche for 6 nights or Hotel Windsor,Nice for the same time. Hotel Welcome looks nice and has a wonderful location.We want to take some day trips by train or bus. We are leaning towards Villefranche however we will not have a car so need transportation access. If we stay in Villefranche how convenient is it to get transport to the surrounding area or into Nice for the Museums etc?

Villefranche, just over the mountain from Nice is the quintessential romantic seaside town - Nice is a bustling big modern city and even hotels on the seafront there are in a big city.

Villefranche the type of place most only dream about staying in and never do.

Transport wise Villefranche is just as good practically as Nice as the coastal train line stops smack in the middle of town so you can get to any point along the Cote d'Azur as easy about as from Nice - Villefranche on its calanque like tranquil bay I think would be worlds more what you expect on the Riviera than brash and boisterous Nice, just a few miles over the hill.

Oh and yes it is just a few minutes from Villefranche to Nice by frequent trains - about five minutes to Nice-Ville station so it is as easy to get to Nice from Villefrance as it is from places inb sprawling Nice - really!

We stayed in Villefranche for a week last summer, and I think I would choose Nice instead. Getting public transportation (bus) is easy from Nice, Villefranche or Monaco (that's not an issue), but I really feel Nice has more to offer for tourists, especially if you want a selection of small but very good restaurants. Keep in mind that Villefranche is a cruise ship destination, which alters the tone of its restaurants. We had better food in Nice. Villefranche is picturesque, so if a view of the harbor is your highest priority, then the Hotel Welcome is well situated for that. We thought the best thing about Villefranche was its location so near Nice, Monaco and Eze le Village, rather than its own charms, but others may have a different opinion.

Thank you so much for your quick reply. Hotel Welcome is holding a room for us. We just wanted to make sure that we were doing the correct thing before we sent them our credit card information for a deposit. We are looking forward to ending our 3 week trip to France sitting on the balcony, overlooking the ocean and taking a few day trips. You have answered all our questions. We really appreciate it!

Oh! I didn't realize the cruise ships went there. We love good food. Small restaurants are our first choice instead of larger, crowded ones. Now I am a little confused! What do you think of the Hotel Windsor? Anyone stayed there?Would like a water view room or at least a balcony overlooking the ocean. Is Villefranche overrun with tourists from the cruise ships?

I totally disagree with PalenQ. Nice has much more to offer - especially in October when summer is past & the days will be shorter.

We've stayed in Nice perhaps 20 times in the past 33 years for a total of maybe 3 months. Always at the Hotel Windsor. We've visited Villefranche and we walked just about every street, which took us about 30-45 mins. Villefranche is actually a small cliffside/hill town and many of those streets were quite steep. There are perhaps 30 times more restaurants in Nice than in Villefranche. Great daily food & flower market on the Cours Saleya (antiques on Monday), and Old Town is quite interesting and many, many Belle Epoque buildings - starting with the Negresco - not a total "modern city" PalenQ describes. Lots of museums also.

Stay in Nice & do a day trip to Villefranche - not the other way around. I would be bored with 6 nights in Villefranche.

The Windsor is a 15 min walk from the train station - which has the best connections to elsewhere than anyplace along the Cote d'Azur. Ask for a room facing the interior courtyard at the Windsor.

I've spent time in Villefranche several times - nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to stay there unless I was on a honeymoon or perhaps a 'dirty weekend' with a secret lover. Agree with Stu that Nice has so much more to offer.

And as voyager61 mentioned, the restaurants in Villefranche aren't nearly up to the standard you find in Nice, at least that's my opinion. I've stayed at the Windsor and loved it. Interesting mix of staid and quirky. The walls in the stairways and public areas of the hotel featured many framed pages from Tin-Tin books when I was there. And a nightingale woke me at 3am four mornings in a row! Magic!

Transportation options from Nice also include an excellent bus system that will take you up into the hills to Grasse and to Cagnes (where Renoir's Les Collettes, his home for the last 10 or so years of his life, is located). And a short distance behind the main train station is the small Chemin de fer de Provence that runs from Nice to Digne, stopping in Entrevaux, a very beautiful and well-preserved medieval walled village with a citadel and fortified draw bridge.

The first time in Nice we stayed at the Hotel Windsor. The second time we stayed at the Petit Palais, formerly the residence of Sacha Guitry: www.petitpalaisnice.fr. Our room there had a view of the water and the chateau, albeit rather a distant one. This hotel is located in a residential area near the foot of Cimiez. It's very quiet and peaceful. Breakfast was on the patio outside. I was worried the hotel was too far from the old town. But actually we found the walk not bad. And it was a short walk to the Chagall museum. We liked this hotel very much, but it might be too quiet and out of the way for some people.

We really liked Nice, in particular the food and the Belle Epoque architecture. The city has a kind of lazy sensual charm, which is reinforced by the curvy architecture and which I attribute to the Italian influence. And it's a great transportation center for exploring along the Cote d'Azur.

This has really been a helpful thread for us. We were all set to make a reservation at the Welcome Hotel. Today we will be researching these other hotels. I can see that we have some work to do. I will post later on our thoughts after some research.
We are foodies and food is an important part of our trip as well as the wine and the wonderful perched villages and all in between. We also love art so we have much to see and do. We also like to sit on a balcony with a nice glass of wine and look at the ocean.
Anyone with more information please post it for us.

I guess it depends on what you want. If you just want to sit on the balcony most of the time and do an occasional day trip Villefranche would be ok but it really is very small. If you want to be able to stroll around in the evening and sample different restaurants, poke around in shops, etc. then Nice would be better. Early Oct is probably a lot different from when I was there which was late November (year before last) but at that time of year it was dead! Most restaurants were closed for the season. You should check into exactly when their 'season' ends (probably still open in early Oct but I would check). It may be more lively in early October.

Nice may be a large city but if you stay in the 'old' section it certainly does not feel like a 'city'. There are interesting markets (flower, antique, fruit and veggie, etc), a lovely seaside promenade to walk along, cute neighborhoods. It felt more Italian than French to me.

I actually agree with stu dudley - I always stay in Nice because I like bigger towns with lots of vibrant streets at night, etc.

My comments on Villefranche being more dreamy I guess I tried to think what the average tourist may like - a quiet seaside town - so it depends on what you want - the trappings of a large vibrant city or a small seaside village where the sidewalks are rolled up at night.

Thanks everyone for all the wonderful comments and suggestions. We will visit Villefranche but have booked the Hotel Windsor-a room with a balcony and garden view. We will be happy there.

I am going to try to get Stu Dudley's itinerary for the Cote D'azur. We want to do many things. Eze, St. Paul de Vence, maybe a quick look at Monte Carlo and the Matisse and Chagall museums or galleries. I will probably post again about restaurants.

I think you will be happy with your choice of Nice. We stayed at a hotel, Le Grimaldi, which we liked a lot, but it doesn't have water views.

I would not call Nice a "bustling" modern city. It felt like a large town or a small city, certainly not overwhelming. We loved the old town area. Here is my trip report. I was there just three nights, with my DD, in June 2006:

We arrived in Nice in the early afternoon on Friday, via train from Venice. Our Hotel le Grimaldi (http://www.le-grimaldi.com/) was a short cab ride from the train station. It was 10EUR for myself, my daughter, my gargantuan bag, and her two small ones. We were greeted graciously at the hotel, which immediately struck us as a good find.

The hotel is actually two Belle Epoque buildings back-to-back. One side is much prettier to enter, as it faces a nice church. The other side is fine, too, but a bit boring. I think the side on rue Grimaldi is the plain one, and the other side on rue Maccarani is prettier.

The man at the front desk carried my bag to the room, and showed us around. There’s a business center on the ground floor, with free internet use on their two computers, and a free printer to use. (Also wireless in the lobby, I think for a fee.)

Our room was a ‘classic’, twin-bedded room, which was large enough, had a little balcony, a sparkling tile bath with fluffy bright yellow towels, and nice toiletries. It was 150EUR, plus tax and 10EUR per person if we opted for the hot/cold breakfast buffet. They suggested we check out the buffet (served till 10:30a.m.), and if we were interested the next morning, we could sign on for it. Their deal is that you have to buy it everyday to get the 10EUR rate. Otherwise, per day, it’s 15EUR.

So the next morning, we were happy to find hot eggs, proscuitto, yoghurts, cereals, cappuccino, assorted croissants, juices, etc. We thought it a good deal and quite convenient, so we enjoyed it each morning.

For our first dinner, I had brought the name of a restaurant I’d found on Travel Talk, and the front desk agreed it was a good one, a local favorite in old Nice. It’s called Acchiardo, at 38 rue Droite in Vieux Nice. We headed over for their opening at 7p.m., and were very happy with it. Really friendly and attentive service, very quaint and casual atmosphere, with a good menu. I had a steak dinner, which actually included vegetables on the side. My daughter had two different salads. We had bottled water and a half-liter of house red wine. When the bill arrived for 28.50EUR, I thought they’d made a mistake because it was so much less than I’d been accustomed to paying in Venice, Florence and Rome. But, no, it was correct. (We would have maybe eaten there another night, but found out it closes on weekend nights, believe it or not.)

We walked all over old Nice, then through the pedestian area to the promenade and took that way back to the hotel. It’s such a beautiful walk at night. The Chateau hillside is all lit up, the palm trees are lit, and the waves look so pleasant. It was how we ended each of our Nice nights, with that walk back to the hotel.

The next day we decided to take the short bus ride on the #81, to visit the Villa and Jardins Ephrussi de Rothschild, near Saint Jean Cap Ferrat. (The bus is just 1.30EUR each direction, which you pay in exact change on the bus.)

It was a nice visit, especially to see the views of the sea down below on both sides of the hillside. I thought the price was a bit steep, at 9.50EUR for an adult, because the Villa isn’t really all that interesting (sorry!), but the gardens are pretty. There’s also a nice little café there, for a light snack or drink or meal, which was a welcome break from all our walking.

While we were there, a very strong wind came up, which caused quite a bit of white caps in the water below, and chased everyone in from the patio tables. The wind stayed with us for the rest of the day, but wasn’t terribly annoying.

From the Villa, we did the easy walk down to the port of St. Jean to walk around and check it out. There are nice boats in the little harbor, with cute restaurants and shops. It’s very tiny, so doesn’t take long to walk from end to end of St. Jean. We spent just about an hour and a half there, then caught the #81 back to Nice.

That evening, we returned to old Nice for dinner. We loved that neighborhood’s little streets, overall atmosphere, and cute shops. We found the Restaurant la Tapenada, 6 rue St. Reparate and had a very nice dinner. It was probably about 60EUR for the two of us, on their fixed price menu, with a bottle of house wine. Very nice little place, with friendly and attentive service. They even let my daughter trade her dessert for a salad. So she had two salads to start, one after the other, and they timed the arrival of our main courses perfectly. We were perfectly happy with our meal there.

The next day we decided we’d stick to the coast and see Antibes, which is a short 20-minute train ride from Nice. We were glad we’d chosen Antibes, as it’s beautiful. The sea wall makes a nice walk, and the Centre Ville is very charming.

We wandered its streets, shopped in a tiny clothing boutique, found a little place for omelettes (nothing special, but nice enough), then headed back to Nice by train after about 4 hours total. It was a good choice for a quick day-trip.

That evening we weren’t very hungry, so opted for the simple Pasta Basta, once again in old Nice. It was a nice meal, although not extraordinary. Good prices and decent service.

All in all, we were very impressed with Nice and the surrounding area. It’s a very pretty city, with a friendly attitude, sitting on a lovely shore. There are many options for things to do near Nice. We’d considered St. Paul de Vence and Digne, but with the beautiful clear weather, we were drawn to stay at the seaside, and were glad we did."

We are positive that we will love Nice. Today we are calling airlines. Seems like the flights to Europe have really increased since we went to Italy last Sept. Hopefully there will be a deal out there.

I used to visit Nice almost every summer, and agree with the posters above who suggest it over VilleFranche. Nice is a great combination of city and resort, with tons of wonderful restaurants, and many interesting neighborhoods to explore. Villefranche IMHO is good for a day trip, but I would never have wanted to base there. I think you've made an excellent choice. IF you decide against Hotel Windsor, look at Hotel Westminster which is very close to that hotel, and has lovely junior suites with small terraces overlooking the sea. We stayed there almost every time we visited, and I understand that it was renovated within the last year or so.

I would see no problem in stationing oneself in Villefranche because your rail options are very, very good there, but we did enjoy our stay in Nice at the Hotel Grimaldi. I think we were there in Spring of 2002. We took advantage of the hotel's midpoint location between the ocean and the train station, plus its good access to major bus routes.

Most days we did daytrips; we travelled as far east as Menton on the Italian border, as far west as Cannes, and as far north as Grasse (which I would skip). We climbed the hill up to Eze (actually rather easy) from the Eze sur Mer trainstop and even visited the aquarium in Monaco.

If you are into art (that was our basic mission), the Cote d'Azur pass is a great deal because there are some gems of art museums sprinkled about everywhere.